THE Court of Appeals has sustained its earlier decision allowing the son of former Maguindanao governor and clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr. to be released from jail.
In a four-page resolution, the CA’s former Sixteenth Division through Associate Justice Marie Christine Azcarrage-Jacob junked the motion for reconsideration filed by the government prosecutors seeking to reverse its January 30, 2017 decision.
The appellate court earlier upheld the order of Quezon City RTC Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes granting bail to Sajid Islam Ampatuan, one of the principal suspects in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre where 57 civilians, including 32 journalists, were killed.
Ampatuan was granted bail on Jan. 9, 2015.
The CA rejected the arguments of the petitioners that its Jan. 30, 2017 decision should be reversed following the decision of the trial court to discharge Police Insp. Rex Ariel Diongon as state witness and to admit his testimony.
In its appeal, government prosecutors asked the appellate court to give weight to the testimony of Diongon, which was previously disregarded by the RTC, to prove that the evidence against Ampatuan’s guilt is strong enough to deny his application for bail.
The petitioners insisted that the “supervening event” should warrant the reversal of the CA’s decisions favoring Ampatuan.
In denying the government prosecutors’ plea, the appellate court stressed that the petitioners failed to submit proof that the admission of Diongon’s testimony was issued by the RTC.
Even assuming that such order was issued by the trial court, the CA ruled that it would have no relevance to the present case as its review power is limited only to a determination of whether or not the trial court issued the said order in grave abuse of its discretion.
“Indeed, our power of review does not include encroaching upon the lower court’s prerogative of determining the witnesses whose testimonies are relevant to the application of bail as well as the power of according probative weight to said witnesses’ testimonies in the absence of any showing that the exercise of such discretion was gravely abused by the trial court—an imputation we find wanting in the instant case,” the CA said.
Last month, the CA also affirmed the decision of Solis-Reyes to grant bail to 16 policemen who were among the 198 accused in the Maguindanao massacre.